


Candy Crushed

by argentum_ls (LadySilver)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Chocolate Box Exchange 2020, Chocolate Box Treat, Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Humor, Season 1 Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/argentum_ls
Summary: Giles has to field a sweet request from Buffy and her friends.
Relationships: Rupert Giles & Xander Harris & Willow Rosenberg & Buffy Summers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Candy Crushed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [craterdweller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/craterdweller/gifts).



> I don't know when the first season of Buffy is supposed to be set in the school year, so pretend that it starts early enough that the gang is together by mid-February.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to idelthoughts for the developmental support and beta work on this story, and for giving me that joke at the end and insisting on its inclusion.
> 
> Questions, comments, concrit, and kudos are all welcome.

A furious whispering yanked Giles’s concentration from the tome he’d spent most of the afternoon pouring through. Frowning, he marked his place and made a quick note of what he’d learned before setting the book aside and rising. His knees groaned from being straightened after so long, and he took another moment to let his body adjust while he tracked the slam of the library doors, the footsteps that echoed across the space, and finally the thunk of backpacks being tossed on the wooden table. The familiarity and pace of the sounds told him there was no danger here, though the continued whispering alerted him to there being some kind of crisis brewing. He took a quick, fortifying sip of tea that had, alas, grown cold during his research, and went to greet his visitors.

Buffy, Willow, and Xander had taken up their preferred seats at the main table and now leaned across it, deep in conversation with each other. “You ask him,” one of them insisted to the others. Giles didn’t catch the response to that as it was swallowed in a flurry of words that overlapped too quickly and quietly to carry across the room.

A quick overview of the three teens showed no obvious bruises or blood stains, which meant that whatever had so captured their attention probably was life-or-death. Though, this being Sunnydale, he’d found that the assumption of imminent death generally proved to be wise.

“Giles—” Buffy looked up at him suddenly. “—You know you’re our favorite teacher and the best Watcher ever, don’t you?” A beat later, she batted her eyelashes, like she’d been following a list of instructions for flattery and had only just reached that one. 

Giles resisted the urge to pinch his nose and sigh in exasperation; the children had only just begun talking and if he started showing impatience too soon, he’d have nothing left for when the conversation inevitably went completely off the rails. “What do you want?”

“See, the thing is—” Xander began, before visibly losing his nerve and turning to Willow. “Willow has a favor she needs to ask you.”

“I do?!” Willow squeaked. She looked to Buffy, who raised her eyebrows meaningfully in response. Willow leaned across the table, her long hair hiding her face, though not her words. “Why am I the spokesperson for this? It was your idea.”

“I buttered him up,” Buffy responded. “I said I was going to do the buttering, and I did. This was supposed to be a team effort. Giles is all buttered, so now you need to ask him.”

Buffy’s word choice often caused him physical pain, both in her use of slang and her creative misuse of what should be simple English. This particular use took all Giles’s willpower to not acknowledge, because drawing attention to it would no doubt cause the three teens even more embarrassment when they recognized how it could be misunderstood. 

“I can do something else,” Willow suggested. “I can take notes. Do we need notes?” She reached for her backpack, and only stopped when Buffy scowled. “That would be a no, then,” she added, _sotto voce_.

“Xander,” Buffy prompted. “You’re good at this.” 

If he didn’t know no such thing existed, Giles would have thought the three of them were trying to set some kind of Guinness Book record for playing hot potato with responsibility. Whatever the favor was they wanted to ask, it had to be a big one—and the only thing that came to mind as big enough involved a supernatural threat. He cleared his throat, hoping to move them along.

The noise startled Willow enough that she jumped, then blurted out, “We need to borrow $20 dollars.”

“$20 dollars?” Giles echoed. As requests went, one for a paltry sum of money was so mundane that he almost felt disappointed by it. Unless there was more? Twenty dollars to pay off a demonic debt, perhaps? He started running through his mental index of demons and beasties, trying to think of which ones would be interested in human currency, and what they would be willing to do to acquire it. The list must have grown long enough, fast enough for panic to show on his face because Xander spoke up suddenly.

“Buffy will pay you back,” he promised. “She’s good for it. You know she’ll come through.” His words sounded rushed, like he needed to convince Giles before Giles had the chance to think of a rebuttal.

Thinking of a rebuttal would have first required Giles to be listening to the argument—though he was reasonably certain they hadn’t made one so far.

Despite his thoughts being elsewhere, the switch from “we” to “Buffy” didn’t pass Giles’s notice, though he was inclined to let it slide. Giles was well aware that Xander’s family often suffered from money problems, which made it hardly surprising that he wouldn’t commit to paying back a loan if he wasn’t required to. Buffy and Willow weren’t so understanding. In unison, they both reached across the table and socked Xander’s arms. Though Buffy obviously pulled her punch, Xander still winced and began rubbing the place she hit.

“I meant _we’ll_ pay you back,” Xander corrected, bowing under the threat of further physical violence. Glancing at Willow, Xander mouthed an “ow” that the twitching of her lips showed Willow had no sympathy for. “But not with interest,” he added to Giles, “because I’m lucky if my parents remember to give me an allowance at all, and …” He trailed off, and scooched his chair back so he sat out of immediate reach of any further jabs, arms crossed so he could rub both at the same time.

“No mooching,” Willow informed him, wagging her finger toward him in emphasis. “We don’t allow moochers. Not for _this_.” She allowed Xander a moment to understand and accept the terms, then leaned closer. “I got you covered. You know I’ll always look out for my Xand.”

Xander brightened at that, but before he could comment, Buffy spoke up.

“Are we good?” she inquired, impatience coloring her voice. “If we don’t hurry up, all the good stuff will be gone.”

Looks of horror passed over all three of the teens’ faces, and then they all turned imploring, hangdog eyes on him. Giles drew a steading breath.

They weren’t going to get anywhere without more information, a fact he’d often found to be true when it came to successfully battling demons. He had to admit the three teens had the pathetic look down. If only they would put this kind of effort into applying common sense; they might not keep running into the kinds of problems that required access to ancient tomes to fix, and … whatever this current problem was, which may or may not require an ancient tome.

“Why,” he asked, crossing his arms over his vest, careful not to wrinkle it, “do you need this money?”

Buffy cocked her head sharply, the fake-sadness in her eyes slipping away. “It’s February 15th,” she stated in that particular tone she used when she was surprised to know something Giles didn’t.

“The day after Valentine’s Day,” Willow helpfully supplied.

“Otherwise known as Friendship Day,” Xander added. “Or, as I more commonly know it: Let’s Just Be Friends Day.”

“Indeed,” Giles stated, keeping his voice level. “I am fully aware of what the date is. Having to be cheek and jowl with all you—” With a wave of his hand, he encompassed the larger school population beyond the three teens seated in front of him— “as you’ve engaged in your hormone-addled mating rituals over the last few weeks has left me counting down to this day. What I’d like to determine is the connection between it and your need for money. Surely, any Valentine’s expenditures would have been needed yesterday.”

He turned away to polish his glasses and collect himself after this outburst from pent up frustration even he hadn’t been fully aware of. He’d been trained to be a Watcher and a librarian, neither of which profession involved working among hundreds of high school students. Demons would be so much easier. 

“Do you think he doesn’t _know_?” Willow inquired. “He _is_ English.”

Xander croaked a scandalized sounding noise. “No Valentine’s Day?! But that means…”

“Giles, Giles, Giles.” Buffy hopped up on the seat of her chair, enabling her to grasp Giles by the shoulders. “Today is one of the greatest days of the year, second only to November 1st. Well, third, if you count Christmas, but that one’s in an entirely different category.” Without waiting for him to ask again the day’s significance, she leaned toward him and locked their eyes. “It’s Discount Candy Day!”

“Deep discount,” Xander added. “Like, so deep it’s almost free. The stores are practically begging people to take their extra Valentine’s candy off their hands.” Pausing, he squinted in consideration, then amended his assertion. “Except not really, and the security guards really don’t like it when you do.” With a huff, he glowered down at the table and hunkered in on himself like a man who learned from experience.

“And that’s why we need to borrow $20 dollars!” Willow concluded.

Just to be sure he understood correctly, Giles stated, “You want to buy leftover Valentine’s candy.”

A moment passed in which all three of the teens gaped at Giles, then they began listing off specific confection items, as if Giles truly did not understand the inadequacy of a word like “candy.” Their examples piled on each other into a verbal sampler box that made Giles’ head spin.

“Chocolate covered cherries.”

“Hershey’s kisses.”

“Jelly beans.”

“Turtles.”

“Heart-shaped Reese’s.”

“And those teeny-tiny hearts that have cute sayings on them and taste like chalk,” Buffy added with a fond smile before dropping back into her seat, her hands coming to rest clasped over her heart. “Be. Mine.”

To think that Giles had imagined this day to be one for respite after the previous weeks. “To be clear,” he said, “this has nothing to do with demons or any kind of demonic debt payment, yes?” One could never truly rule out those possibilities, though he was at least willing to grant that they might not be forefront this time.

“Only the kind that children turn into when they’ve eaten too much sugar,” Xander stated, as if that clarified anything. “So, how about it, G?”

Giles didn’t bother to correct Xander’s use of the nickname, as this conversation had already gone on too long. He made eye contact with Willow, Xander, and Buffy in turn, then tipped his chin as if just now reaching his decision. “I will loan you the money on one condition: You—all of you—must refrain from eating any of your spoils in my presence.”

Buffy started to nod, then stopped as a new idea occurred to her. “Don’t you want some chocolate? We could totally loop you in on this.”

“I do not,” Giles answered. “What you Americans call ‘chocolate’ is a pale shadow of the real substance.” Hurt flashed across Buffy’s face, and Giles realized he’d been a little harsh, though not wrong. “However, I appreciate the offer.”

“Ohhh,” Willow said, her eyes widening in a sudden epiphany. “If Giles is loaning us money to buy candy like our parents used to do, does that make him our sugar daddy?”

She looked so proud at her delivery of what she, no doubt, thought was a clever pun that it was all Giles could do to keep the entirety of his reflexive horror at bay. Giles pinched his nose and breathed out a harsh sigh. Thank god the library was empty. “I will _give_ you the money if you’ll _also_ promise to never, ever utter that particular phrase about me again. Any of you.”

“Deal!” Buffy agreed. She hopped up, hand already extended as Giles reached for his wallet.

As he watched them skip out of the library, their attention now focused on figuring out how to maximize their boon, he was struck again with the realization of just how young the Slayer and her friends were. They really were children.

But, they were children who were not his problem right now--and who hopefully wouldn’t be again until after their sugar highs wore off. Twenty dollars, he thought, was a small price to pay to make them happy, and to get them to go away so he could indulge his own love and return to his books.


End file.
